Archive for April, 2012

Samantha and Dave cook up a storm with a special meal dedicated to their favourite millionaires. Menu includes Stuffed Vegetables, Toadies in the Hole, Donor Kebabs, and Eton Mess.

6.00pm Embarrassing Bodies

Episode 666: Parliament A team of experts answers questions about assorted distressing conditions caused by House of Commons parasites, including the current epidemic of incursio secretum affecting people trying to safeguard their private snatches from an intrusion of toxic MPs. WARNING: Contains upsetting images of Members faces.

You want political hot potatoes? I’ve got political hot potatoes. Well, I can supply them no problem, but I’m afraid they’ll now cost an extra 20% in VAT courtesy of the completely cretinous highly-revered Chancellor of the Exchequer’s latest budget. Unless, that is, you don’t mind political hot potatoes which have cooled down from the oven somewhat, thereby becoming political lukewarm potatoes. Which are tax exempt.

Confused??? So are you.

Let me explain.

HOW TO MAKE A BOLOGNAISE

(Self-stuffing recipe)

Ingredients

One sausage roll or Cornish pastie

One smug, self-satisfied, sneering millionaire toff with a trust fund

The most important job in Government

A couple of freeze-dried brain cells

Method

1. Prepare self-satisfied, sneering millionaire toff with a trust fund by marinading in Magdalen College, Oxford for years

2. Insert into 11 Downing Street

3. Sprinkle with some fiscal ideas and half-bake

4. Discard any residue of common sense

5. Present bolognaise on a sterling silver platter to media for grilling, and electorate for roasting.

And the result is? Well, it leaves quite a nasty, if not bitter, taste in your mouth, to be honest.

For those of you not up to date with the latest British political news, here’s a summary:-

George Osborne, the well-known twat Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, presented his Budget to the House of Commons the other day. This is always a bit of a toughie at the best of times, but currently we’re going through the worst of times (hadn’t realized Charles Dickens had written A Tale of Two Cities about the kind of London the Tories inhabit, and the one in which the rest of us reside), and George had to come up with something that delivered for his coterie of millionaire friends, whilst clobbering the hell out of the rest of us to pay for it. And so he lowered the top rate of income tax from 50p in the £ to 45p in the £ (and subsequently lamented to the press that, sadly, despite owning a £4m house in the best part of London, which he lets out, and having a stake in the upmarket family decorating firm, Osborne & Little – not to mention that trust fund – he isn’t wealthy enough to pay the top rate himself. Which, of course, we somehow mystically knew).

But in addition to this, he also announced that in future VAT would be charged on previously exempt hot takeaway food. (In an instant, thirty million quid was wiped off Gregg’s, the country’s biggest supplier of heart attacks, er, sausage rolls). However, it’s not quite as simple as that…

…for hot snacks – that is, those that are warmer than the ambient air temperature – will be liable for the tax, whilst cooler fare, Mr Osborne states – those of a temperature equal to that of the air temperature or lower – will not be liable. Thus, if you hang around for a while after the new batch of tasty goodies has come out of the oven, and wait for them to cool before purchasing, you won’t have to hand over the extra dosh. However, it’s not quite as simple as that…

…for in summer the ambient air temperature is warmer than in winter, meaning a lukewarm snack in the summer months will not be liable for the 20% levy – as a pastie which has cooled from the oven will be in the vicinity of the temperature on a warm day – whilst in the winter, a warm pastie will still be hotter than the surrounding cold air, and thus can be considered ‘hot’, in the sense that it is warmer than the ambient temperature and, accordingly, hotter than a lukewarm summer pastie.

Got it???

You can just imagine the glee of the ever-diminishing number of hard-pressed Revenue and Customs officers (though to be fair, they’ve recently been alleviated from going through the accounts of the top echelon of the country’s political and financial elite, since they naturally don’t pay tax) as they are issued with various thermometers to measure both the ambient air temperature in assorted takeaway establishments, together with the insides of a yummy Sausage and Bean Melt, in order to ascertain whether or not VAT is liable for Tom, at the back of the queue, as well as Dick, at the front of the queue. (Harry quite sensibly opted to go to the pub to drown his sorrows at what Britain has become, having given up the Empire and instead devoted itself to lecturing condescendingly on the meaning of democracy to myriad countries the world over, the inhabitants of some of them having never even heard of a deep fried Mars Bar, let alone possessing the wit to imagine a young Right Honorable member of the notorious Oxford Dining Society, the Bullingdon Club, drinking to excess and smashing up top expensive restaurants and country houses willy nilly with his nauseatingly rich friends whilst wearing white tie and tails. Never mind guessing that his real name is Gideon. Tosser.)

Meanwhile, David Cameron hurridly announced a minimum price for alcohol to divert attention away from another controversial proclamation in Gideon’s Budget Bible concerning a ‘granny tax’ (not sure if you can tax her for six months at a time, and as for where to put the sticker…). Ensuring several lawsuits will ensue, since the measure (ha!) flies in the face of EU law, and is not very popular with the distilleries, for some reason.

Whilst at the same time, the Co-Treasurer of the Conservative Party was kebabed on camera in a sting by newspaper journalists selling Meals for Deals: donate £250,000, and dinner with the Prime Minister and his lovely wife in their private flat in Downing Street is yours.

What do you suppose you get for a dinner worth a quarter of a million quid? A sausage pastie and half a glass of White Stripe? Or is that expecting a little too much these days?

Rules. Where would we be without them? Personally, I’d be wearing opera glasses and those sucker things on my hands and knees, stuck to the outside windows of George Clooney’s bathroom (which could well be dangerous on so many levels. Especially if his bathroom is on the top floor). So rules are obviously a necessary part of life and the sooner we get used to that, the better.

Naturally, we’re not all in a position to write the rules. Not all of us went to Eton (well, I drove past it one rainy afternoon in an old Saab, but I don’t think that counts). Not all of us are deranged, out of touch dictators, unsure of the true meaning of democracy. (Who went to Eton. But that’s enough of British politics.) Only one of us is Silvio Berlusconi (although half of us appear to have slept with him). And what a huge relief that is, it obviously being an enormous burden to use one’s elite position to teach, guide, prescribe and proscribe to the population at large in an all-knowing, but caring and morally responsible manner.

Having recently seen the leaked 3,786 weird, nit-picking finely-tuned, well-thought out stipulations for posting on Facebook devised by plainly sexually-repressed oddball totally regular nothing-abnormal-about-him kind of a guy Mark Zuckerberg, I thought the time has come for a little stipulating and devising regarding my own blog. (I’m bored. Can’t go out ’til the washing machine’s finished).

Oh, and for the record, Mr Zuckerberg may indeed be a little pleased with himself with his 800 million site members, but much as I don’t like to trumpet my own success, I’ll just point out that this week – that’s a mere seven days! – Reversing Over Expats has increased its listed readership by a staggering 50%! That’s right; I’ve got 3 official followers now, up from 2. So stick that in your flotation portfolio, fruitcake.

REVERSING OVER EXPATS SITE RULES

1. No spitting.

2. No ball games.

3. No Ed Balls’ games.

4. Don’t sound your horn after midnight.

5. One foot to be on the floor at all times.

6. Discussion of David Cameron, George Osborne, all banking executives and Simon Cowell to be censored at the discretion of NotNiceEtoile.

7. No photographs of tits. (See point 6 above).

8. No breastfeeding of persons under the age of 17.

9. No images of pixelated Pixies. (I was only fulfilling my contractual obligation to be a Jolly Pixie, how was I supposed to know the Brownie Juice was spiked???)

10. No maps of Turkey, no pictures of turkey breasts. Even if covered in mayonnaise with tomato on rye. (Cartoon turkey breasts OK if wearing a sportsbra and thick sweater).

11. No poaching of animals. (Grilling is acceptable, as long as a range of mustards is available).

12. Pictures of crushed heads OK, especially those as a consequence of popular uprisings.

13. Offside Rule to be chanted on the hour, every hour, after five pints of best on match days:-

A player is in an offside position if he is closer to the opponent’s goal linethan both the ball and the second-to-last defender (which is usually the last outfield player), but only if the player is on his opponent’s half of the pitch. “Offside position” is a matter of fact, whereas committing an “offside offence” occurs when the a player is “actively involved” which is subject to the interpretation of the referee. Goals scored after committing an offside offence are nullified if caught by the referee.

How much more clear can that be???

14. No anoraks. Especially those with the initials MZ, no matter how nauseatingly rich they are.

No appeal if you haven’t bathed for three weeks and are wearing socks with sandals. Or your trousers are too short, and/or made of cartoon polyester.